


Leftovers

by MugetsuPipefox



Series: Sea-Salt Family [5]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: 2000 words in atlantica counts as MerMay, Gen, Perhaps Too Much, confusing parentage, custody problems, definitely too much, takin a break from the angst lads, xion also likes seashells, xion likes to cook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-26 16:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19009696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MugetsuPipefox/pseuds/MugetsuPipefox
Summary: Lea, Isa, Roxas, and Xion go on a picnic. They are interrupted. (post kh3)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't had internet for an entire week so you can thank sheer boredom for me finishing this lmao
> 
> If you haven't read the other fics in this series, basically it's just the seasalt fam living together in Twilight Town. A bit of a break from the angst :)
> 
> Also spoilers for KH3, as always

The darkness was a tangible thing, thick and twitching. Overhead, tree branches bowed under its weight, and a few loose leaves were knocked free and tumbled gently to the grass below. Dozens of glowing yellow eyes peered out at them from all directions, watching them hungrily. They were getting bolder with every passing second, inching ever forward, drawn by both their Keyblades and their hearts.

Lea didn't even bother to sit up.

"Whose turn is it?"

"Mine," Xion said, already on her feet.

Lea watched her lazily as she stalked towards the biggest cluster of Heartless, Keyblade in hand. Predictably, they jumped out at her as soon as she stepped within range, but a single swing of her Kingdom Key was all it took to destroy them. Once she'd finished with the ones on the ground, she jumped up into the trees to deal with the rest.

Her strength was entirely her own now, but really that only made her more impressive. Axel had barely won when he'd fought her before he'd gotten his heart back. He very much doubted he'd manage it again if they were to have a rematch.

A Powerwild slammed into the dirt just to the left of where Lea was lying, knocked from its perch by Xion's relentless attacks. It was back on its feet in an instant, its eyes quickly finding the three left on the ground. Lea waved in its general direction and set it on fire.

"They're worse than ants," he complained.

Isa sneered at a particularly bold Shadow that was starting to get a little too close.

"Thunder!" Xion cried from out of sight, and Lea watched as it vaporised into a handful of HP balls.

"At least ants are only interested in your crumbs," Isa agreed.

Xion jumped down from the trees, brushing a few specks of dirt from her dress. "Is that all of them?" she asked, surveying the area.

"For now," Lea remarked. "Give 'em five minutes and more will come."

Xion shrugged, dismissing her Keyblade as she returned to her spot on the rug beside Roxas.

"You should have thought of that before you suggested this," Isa said, without an ounce of sympathy.

"Well, where would you have picked?" It wasn't like there were many places in Twilight Town that had actual grass. It was just the woods, and the area outside the mansion. And the mansion wasn't an option; today they were making new memories, not reliving old ones.

To his surprise, Isa actually contemplated the question. "The Kingdom of Corona."

Okay, that was a pretty decent suggestion, Lea had to admit, but there were bucket loads of Heartless there, too.

"Wonderland has some nice spots," Xion offered.

He thought of hedge mazes, card soldiers, and questionable snacks marked 'eat me'. "Pass."

" _Hard_ pass," Roxas stressed. His face scrunched up like he was remembering something traumatic. Which was well within the realm of possibility when Wonderland was involved. Lea barely had a moment to appreciate that someone, at least, was on his side, before Roxas ruined the moment by suggesting, "Neverland."

Xion and Isa nodded in consideration.

"Twilight Town," Lea glared at the lot of them. Traitors. "This is _our_ world. We should do things here." And if that meant they had to smack a few Heartless around every now and then, well, that wasn't exactly anything new, was it?

"Can we still go visit other worlds sometimes?" Xion asked, serving herself some more rice. She and Isa had taken it upon themselves to cook all the food for the day, while Lea and Roxas had been banished from the house under the pretence of buying the non-edible picnic supplies.

(It hadn't fooled either of them; they both knew the real reason was because they had a tendency to burn everything they tried to make. And also, Lea suspected, because Xion was eager to show off the skills she'd picked up from Isa.

…She'd gone more than a little overboard, though. They'd be eating leftovers for weeks.)

There were as many worlds out there as there were stars in the sky. Axel and Saïx had been to their fair share over the years, but Roxas and Xion had only ever visited a handful, and never just for the sake of going. Lea could think of several off the top of his head he knew they'd enjoy.

"Course we can," he said. "But _today_ we're having a picnic in _Twilight Town._ "

"I think it's more of an all-you-can-eat buffet," Roxas laughed. He'd nearly finished his second plateful, and they _still_ had enough food to feed half the town.

Xion hunched a little, sheepish. "We got a little… carried away."

That really went without saying. Lea sat up and reached for a bread roll. "Did you make all this yourself?"

"Isa helped."

Isa shook his head. "I did very little beyond supervise." He was still on his first helping, ever the slow eater. For once that didn't put him at risk of missing out on seconds, though his appetite was usually small enough that it didn't matter anyway.

"At this rate, you could get a job at the Bistro," Lea told her. The food was _good_. Not that he would let either of the kids worry about jobs anytime soon. They'd more than earned, like, at _least_ a decade to just be kids. And they'd have plenty of work to do once he managed to get them enrolled in school. "Tiny rat chef better watch himself."

Xion blushed, but there was a pleased smile on her face.

"Make sure to save room for dessert," Isa chastised when Roxas reached for the dish of potato salad.

Roxas gaped at him. It was hard to tell if he was shocked or excited. "There's _dessert?!_ "

"I made a cake," Xion fidgeted, as if she was only just now realising how over the top she'd actually gone. This had well and truly transcended beyond 'picnic'.

Lea nearly laughed. Had she really expected them to finish it all? They were going to have a hard time just making the leftovers fit in the fridge. Maybe they'd stop by a few places on the way home and pawn it off on the kids' friends.

There was a rustle from somewhere behind them. Since the Heartless had moved in, pretty much all of the birds and assorted woodland creatures had moved out. And not many people had a reason to come this far out. Lea glanced over his shoulder. Yellow eyes stared back.

"Your turn," Xion nudged Roxas' leg with her foot.

Roxas set down his plate with a sigh, and stood. Oathkeeper flared to life in his hand. "I'll be back in a sec."

Lea watched him go until his line of sight was blocked by the trees. It probably would only take him a few seconds. Xion was a force to be reckoned with, but Roxas was practically a one-man army.

"We should do this more often," Xion hummed. It was a weird thing to say when they could hear Heartless being exterminated somewhere just out of view.

"Perhaps not in the middle of a Heartless nest," Isa raised a brow. But he actually sounded like he agreed. Maybe he was finally starting to warm up to the kids. He'd been more open with Xion, lately – the cooking lessons were more than evidence of that. Roxas… would take a little more time. But they were already getting along better than they had before. Lea counted that as a win.

"Hey, what's that one world?" Lea clicked his fingers, trying to remember. "The amusement park one?" He'd only been there once for recon, and after he'd learned that the Heartless were basically harmless, and only interested in the rides (which was weird, but he wasn't about to complain), he hadn't been sent back.

Isa turned to him. "Disney Town?"

"Yeah. We should go there." The kids would love it, and Lea would be lying if he said he wasn't just as eager. When was the last time he'd done something for no other reason than that he wanted to? Even stick-in-the-mud, allergic-to-fun Isa would probably enjoy himself.

"Where are we going?" Roxas emerged from between the trees. As expected, there wasn't a scratch on him.

"An amusement park," Xion replied, brow furrowed in confusion. Poor kids. Tell them to exterminate a giant Heartless and they were all over it, but the concept of an amusement park was a completely foreign concept.

Roxas, predictably, matched her expression. "What's–?" He cut himself off, his expression going slack, and eyes widening. He'd been about to sit down, but he aborted the movement, quickly spinning to face back towards the town.

Xion, much like him, practically flew to her feet. She had one hand over her heart, and the other pressed against her mouth.

Lea and Isa rose more slowly. It was clear from one look that neither of them knew what was going on. "Roxas? Xion?"

Heavy footfalls reached their ears, followed by cracking sticks. Whatever they'd sensed, it was coming their way fast. Lea had half a mind to summon his Keyblade, but despite Roxas and Xion's reaction, they hadn't moved to defend themselves. Not a Heartless, then?

"Found you!" a voice cried, and a figure skidded to a stop on the path.

A very familiar figure.

Xion was the first to recover from the shock. She cleared the picnic rug in a single bound, and threw her arms around a very startled Sora. "You're back!"

"I'm back!" Sora confirmed. He barely had time to return her overly enthusiastic embrace before she stepped back, smiling through teary eyes.

He looked exactly the way he had the last time Lea had seen him. Same clothes, same easy grin, like he hadn't been missing for over a month. Lea checked the path for any sign of other unexpected guests, but besides them, the woods were empty. That didn't make sense, though. Surely Riku and Kairi wouldn't let him run around by himself when they'd only just managed to get him back.

Sora turned from Xion to Roxas, who was still rooted to the spot. The two of them hadn't had a chance to talk before Sora had gone to find Kairi, and then it seemed like they might never be able to. In the time since, Roxas hadn't mentioned Sora beyond a few passing comments – mostly memories.

Lea still didn't know where they stood. When their hearts had connected briefly just after Axel had sacrificed himself, Roxas had acted like he'd come to terms with it, but he'd struggled with his identity for his entire life. It was hard to imagine something like that going away so easily.

Sora was as aware of that as Lea was. His smile was a little less excitable than the one he'd offered Xion, but the warmth was undeniable. "Hey."

Roxas didn't say anything. From where Lea was standing, he couldn't see his face, couldn't even guess at what he was feeling. The silence stretched on, and the atmosphere grew tenser, until finally Roxas lurched forward, arms wrapping around Sora in a hug that lasted barely seconds. Sora eagerly returned it.

"Don't disappear again," Roxas said, pulling away.

"I'm not going anywhere," Sora promised. His attention finally drifted over to where Lea and Isa were still watching, and his grin returned in full-force. "Axel! And… Saïx, right?"

"Isa," all four of them corrected.

Lea had long since given up on correcting the way Sora addressed him (and if he was honest it probably would have felt as weird as Kairi calling him Lea if he'd managed it anyway), but this was something he would not compromise. Saïx wasn't Isa. And he hated the way Isa's face twitched – the only outward indicator of his emotions – when someone called him that.

Thankfully, Sora only needed to be told once. "Isa," he repeated. "Got it." And then he spotted their 'picnic', the rug so covered in food dishes that it was barely even visible. "Whoa! Donald and Goofy would go nuts if they saw all this!"

Lea sank back down, and tossed Sora one of the spare plastic plates. "Help yourself."

"Are you sure? I don't want to impose."

" _Please_ impose." The fewer leftovers they had to take home the better.

"We can't eat it all, anyway," Isa added, returning to his own place.

Roxas and Xion did the same, leaving a space between them, which Xion patted pointedly. It was all the invitation Sora needed. The three of them pressed together, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a way Lea had only ever seen them do with Naminé.

"When did you get back?" Xion asked, as Sora served himself a helping of fried noodles.

"Just now, actually," Sora replied. "I wanted to stop by here and say hi before we headed back to the Islands." He then went on to tell them about where he'd been for the past month. He only got about halfway through before Roxas and Xion's heads snapped up again.

"Naminé's here," Roxas announced.

"Kairi, too," Xion said.

"Riku's probably with them," Sora rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I, uh, kinda lost them when I came to find you."

And, sure enough, Kairi, Naminé, and Riku wandered down the path a moment later. Sometimes it was a little creepy how accurately they could sense each other.

" _There_ you are!" Riku huffed, irritated, but Lea could see the relief in his eyes. "You can't just run off like that, Sora!"

"Sorry," Sora said. He didn't sound very sorry. "I could feel them nearby when we landed, and we haven't seen them in _ages_."

It hadn't really been that long, in hindsight, but Lea understood the sentiment. A month was a long time to worry about someone.

Riku shook his head, more exasperated than truly annoyed. "Hi," he greeted the rest of them. "Sorry for the intrusion. We would have called ahead, but it was kind of last minute."

"It's fine," Lea brushed off the apology. "We already told you, you guys are welcome here whenever."

Naminé caught the kids' eyes, and waved shyly. Roxas scooched closer to Sora so she could sit between him and Lea. She seemed a little mesmerised by the sheer quantity of food. Lea passed her a plate.

"Sit down, help yourselves, blah blah blah."

"That's… a lot of food," Kairi remarked, making herself comfortable on Lea's other side. Riku wasn't far behind her.

"Geez," he laughed. "Were you planning on feeding the entire town?"

Xion twirled her fork through her rice to avoid looking at them. "I know, I know. I just got excited. We've never had a picnic before. I'll think it through better next time."

Sora's attention whipped over to her. "Xion, you _made_ all this?!"

"Just as well," Lea noted, as Kairi, Riku, and Naminé (somewhat reluctantly) began piling up their plates. Had she subconsciously known they would be here?

 _Nah_ , he decided. Because even with four extra mouths to feed, they were still going to have leftovers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite thing about this series is that whenever I start feeling a bit antsy about what I'm writing and wonder if it's OOC or if people will like it, I just remember that first and foremost I'm writing it for me and then it doesn't matter anymore :) So uh if there's any OOCness in this one, I'm sorry but also I'm kind of not lol
> 
> Also! It's MerMay!

"Okay, Sora," Kairi said, sliding a small pile of papers across the dining table towards him. She placed a pen down beside it with a quiet clack. "Sign here."

Sora frowned at the documents like they were written in another language. "Why? What is it?"

Riku leaned over his shoulder, grabbing the pen and pressing it into Sora's hand. "We'll tell you after you sign."

"Well now I'm even more suspicious." He set the pen down again in favour of carefully reading. Of all people, Isa hadn't expected Sora to be the one with the most sense about legally binding documentation.

The more he read, the deeper Sora's frown became. "Custody? Adoption?" he looked back up at Kairi. "What?"

Kairi and Lea shared a glance. Lea was casually leaning against the kitchen counter, but Isa could easily see the tense set of his shoulders. He was anxious.

"While we were looking for you, Axel and Isa had to organise legal documents for Roxas and Xion," Kairi began slowly. "Namely birth certificates."

Sora nodded, but was still visibly confused. "Okay?"

"And since they don't technically have parents, they had to make something up."

"…Okay?"

"You and Kairi," Riku cut to the chase.

Sora blinked up at him. " _What?_ "

Kairi grinned sheepishly. "Surprise?"

"And now you need to sign this to transfer custody rights to Lea so they can continue living here," Riku explained.

It was hard to tell how Sora was taking the news. His mouth was hanging open, but the rest of his expression was rather blank.

"Wait," he said. "So… legally, Roxas and Xion are… my kids?"

"And Naminé."

Isa met Lea's eyes across the table. _It's just a legality_ , he tried to reassure him. It did next to nothing to ease the tension. If it came down to it, he knew Lea would do just about anything to remain Roxas and Xion's guardian. Even if that meant breaking the law they were trying so hard to follow.

Somehow, Isa was unsurprised by the realisation that he would do anything in his power to help in that scenario. Mostly because he knew what the Keybearers meant to Lea, but also, unexpectedly, because he was starting to understand why Lea loved them as much as he did, even if he wasn't quite there himself.

"Naminé, too?"

"On paper, the three of them are triplets," Kairi shrugged. "It was the best option they could find, and I said I was fine with it."

Sora stared at the tabletop for a long moment. "It makes sense, I guess?" he said at length. "I've never really thought of it like that, though."

"No one thinks of it like that," Riku assured him. "It's just so they can exist on paper and, you know, go to school, get jobs. Live normally. Once you hand over custody, it won't matter anyway."

Isa had expected him to happily and willingly sign the documents and carry on like nothing had ever happened. Instead, Sora bit his lip anxiously.

"What's the problem?" Lea asked impatiently. There was something dangerous behind his words, though Isa doubted anyone but he had noticed it.

Sora turned to him apologetically. "It's not that I don't think you're a good guardian," he started slowly.

"I'm sensing there's a 'but' here."

" _But_ I _just_ found out I'm supposed to be a parent, and now I have to immediately give them away. It just… it feels like I'm abandoning them."

Kairi moved around the table to his side, and let her hand rest comfortingly on his shoulder. "You're not abandoning them, Sora. You're just signing a piece of paper so they can live here in Twilight Town with Axel and Isa, like they've always wanted. You can come visit them as often as you want."

Sora did not look any more reassured than before. He was easily the most empathetic person Isa had ever met. Perhaps the problem lied not with how _Sora_ felt, but instead with how Sora thought Roxas and Xion would feel. It was proof enough that he really didn't know them at all; rather than feeling unwanted, they'd probably raise hell to get back to Lea. To them, losing him would be the real abandonment.

"If you are concerned, you should talk to them about it," Isa suggested.

Sora brightened a little. "Yeah! Good idea."

He rose from his chair and headed out into the hall – towards the stairs where Roxas, Xion, and Naminé had disappeared when Kairi had mentioned paperwork, immediately losing interest.

Lea stared after him, but some of the agitation had left him; he knew as well as Isa did what the children would choose, whether they were given a choice or not.

 

* * *

 

"Olette's been teaching me to sew," Xion said. She passed Naminé a bracelet of seashells threaded onto a purple piece of string. "And she suggested I should make jewellery out of the shells."

Naminé let the bracelet fall into her cupped hands like it was made of glass. "Thalassa shells," she realised. "Kairi makes charms out of these."

Roxas, sitting backwards on Xion's desk chair, swivelled to face the doorway. He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. He was pretty sure it was Sora. Did that mean they were finished with whatever 'adult thing' they'd been doing?

"I got the shells from the Islands," Xion confirmed, either not noticing or not caring.

"Hey," Sora stuck his head in through the doorway. He smiled in response to Roxas' wave, but then his attention was completely captured by the bracelet in Naminé's hands, and the necklace Xion had just pulled out of the jewellery box sitting between them on the bed. "Oh! Those are the shells we get on the Islands!"

Xion and Naminé didn't seem surprised by his sudden appearance. Xion held the necklace up so he could see.

"I used to collect shells whenever I went there on missions," she said. "I've been making them into things."

Sora leaned down for a better look. "It's really pretty! Have you thought about getting different types from other worlds? There are some really nice oyster shells in Port Royal."

"Really?" Xion's face lit up.

It had never occurred to them that there might be shells elsewhere, but now that he was thinking about it, Roxas thought he might have seen a few on his trips to Neverland, and the Twilight Town beach was bound to have some.

"Yeah! I can take you, if you want."

She turned pleading eyes on Roxas, as if asking for permission. Or maybe she just wanted approval? He glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was only 3:30pm. "We still have time."

"Let's go!" Xion jumped to her feet.

Sora blinked, surprised by her excitement. "Right now?"

She deflated a little. "Is it too short notice?"

He looked out the window, as if trying to gauge the time, despite the eternal sunset. "There's still plenty of time, right? We can go and be back in time for dinner!"

Roxas was still full from lunch. The prospect of dinner was almost nauseating. But they would definitely have to be back by early evening – Axel tended to worry a lot since he'd gotten his heart back.

Xion spun around to Naminé. "Will you come?"

Naminé looked up at her owlishly, like she hadn't expected to be asked. "Okay."

"I know the perfect place," Sora announced, already heading back out the room. Roxas, Xion, and Naminé hurried to follow him.

"We should tell Axel where we're going," Xion said as they reached the bottom of the stairs. She broke away to duck into the kitchen, and they heard her ask, "Is it okay if Roxas, Naminé, and I go out with Sora for a bit?"

Silence for a moment, then Axel's voice, somewhat hesitantly, "Just be back by six, okay?"

"Okay!" And then she was back in the hall, offering them a thumbs up by way of approval.

They followed Sora outside and down Market Street to where the gummiship was parked – apparently it was a better option than the corridors for where they were going – and then they were off.

Roxas and Xion glued themselves to the windscreen as Sora steered them to whatever world he'd picked. The view was nothing like what they saw in the corridors; there were floating rocks, and Heartless ships, and brightly lit nebula lines, all against a backdrop of stars. It was beautiful.

Their first view of the world they were heading to was a golden castle surrounded by a bubble of water. Roxas had never really given any thought to what worlds looked like beyond what he saw at ground-level, but this probably wasn't what he'd been expecting. He certainly didn't recognise it, if nothing else.

Sora brought the gummiship down right into the water, letting it float on the surface. "Okay, come on!" he said, leaping to his feet and making his way towards the hatch.

"But there's only water here!" Roxas called after him. He couldn't see any land at _all_. What, was he expecting them to just swim?

"Trust me!"

Xion shrugged, and then she and Naminé followed after him. Roxas took up the rear, hoping he wasn't about to make a big mistake.

Sora dove into the water without hesitation. The three of them remained standing on the ship, waiting for him to resurface. He didn't.

"Should we be worried?" Roxas asked.

Naminé crouched down, trying to peer into the water. "I can't s–" She broke off in a gasp as a hand shot out, latching around her arm and dragging her in.

"Naminé!" Xion cried. "What was that?!"

When Naminé didn't break the surface again, either, Roxas kicked off his shoes and dove in after her.

A surge of bubbles rose up around him, and when he dared to try and open his eyes, he found himself looking at Sora's grinning face, and a startled Naminé. Except something was wrong. They had... tails?

He went to speak, only to remember he was still underwater. He quickly clamped a hand over his mouth.

"It's okay," Sora said, perfectly clear. "You can breathe."

 _Yeah, right,_ Roxas immediately thought.

"It's true," Naminé confirmed. She sounded like she barely believed it herself.

Even with her reassurance, actually bringing himself to try it was easier said than done.

There was a splash somewhere above them, and then Xion plunged down beside him. Small air bubbles concealed most of her from view, but as they dissipated, she had a black tail where he was certain she'd had legs a second ago. He inhaled sharply on instinct, and nearly panicked. But… he wasn't drowning. It wasn't quite the same as breathing air, but he could definitely still breathe.

"What?"

"It's magic," Sora explained. "To protect the world order."

"The what?"

Xion made a squeaking noise, reacting much like Roxas had. Then, hesitantly, "I can breathe?" She gave her new tail a flick and drifted backwards a few metres. "What's going on?"

"We're in Atlantica," Sora informed them. "It's the best place to find shells. But it can take some getting used to."

If the three of them had been transformed, then… Roxas glanced down at himself. Sure enough, his legs were gone. And in their place was a grey dolphin-like tail – very similar to Sora's. "This is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me."

"Even weirder than the talking furniture?" Xion asked.

"Weirder than that."

"What about the flying carpet that thought it knew you?"

"…Okay, second weirdest thing."

"Is it weirder than the stolen photos?" Naminé chimed in. She was staring at her tail – a bright white colour that looked almost opalescent in the light – with a considering frown on her face.

Well, the photos had made sense in hindsight, but actually now that he thought about it the whole getting locked up in a virtual world and slowly finding out his whole life was a lie _was_ a hard thing to beat. "Third weirdest thing. This is the third weirdest thing that's ever happened to me."

Xion tilted her head. "What stolen photos?"

Roxas shook his head. "I'll tell you later."

"I think being a lion is weirder," Sora said. "It's so much harder to use a Keyblade with your mouth." He surveyed their various expressions of blatant confusion and disgust. "Never been to the Pride Lands, huh?"

They had not.

"Next time, then," Sora nodded to himself, as if he would ever get Roxas anywhere near a world that forced him to fight with his mouth. "Come on! Let's go find some shells!"

He dove downwards with practiced ease. Roxas, Xion, and Naminé followed much less gracefully. It was hard – not just because it was a movement he wasn't used to, but also because it was a _limb_ he wasn't used to. He kept trying to kick like he would with his legs, only to jolt himself in a random direction when the tail didn't obey like he expected. Still, by the time they reached a canyon near the bottom of the ocean, he'd more or less gotten the hang of it.

"Atlantica itself is a little further in," Sora guided them through the trenches. "But there's a really good spot for shells just before it."

Roxas struggled to keep up. Every now and then he failed to turn in time and bumped into the stone walls. "How do you find all these worlds?" In the Organization, all the worlds they'd visited were pre-chosen. He'd done a fair bit of recon in newly discovered ones, but he'd never thought to ask _how_ they'd discovered them.

"Accident, mostly," Sora grinned at him. "It's pretty easy to get lost in the gummiship."

Ahead, the narrow passage widened into a huge bowl-like shape, full of seaweed, towering rock structures, and the biggest oysters Roxas had ever seen. As they swam into it, a school of fish darted around them and then disappeared back the way they had come.

"Is this the place?" Xion breathed. Her eyes were wide with awe. There were seashells _everywhere_.

"Maybe we should have brought a bag," Roxas said. Right now they didn't even have pockets, let alone the space to carry that many shells.

Sora looked to where they could just see the glow of the golden castle in the distance. "Ariel might have something we can borrow."

"Do you think she'll be there?" Naminé drifted over to him.

"If not, King Triton will probably know where to find her."

They started for the castle, Sora and Naminé in the lead. They'd barely made it halfway across the canyon when a pool of inky darkness appeared between them.

Roxas pulled Xion down just in time to narrowly avoid her being skewered by a Heartless with a tident. She recovered quickly, Kingdom Key in hand before she'd even finished turning around. Roxas followed her lead, calling on both Oathkeeper and Oblivion. Just beyond the rock tower they'd been backed into, he could see Sora protecting Naminé with his own Keyblade.

"I knew it was too quiet," Roxas growled, giving Oblivion an experimental twirl. There was significant water resistance. This wasn't going to be like the fights he was used to.

There were about half a dozen of the tident-wielding Heartless, and then a huge fish-like one that had a few more of the smaller ones hanging off it.

"Which one do you want?" Xion asked. Her Keyblade was already starting to glow.

"Big one," Roxas grinned.

"Then I'll take the small fry."

They nodded, then split, Xion diving to draw the tident ones away, and Roxas torpedoing straight for the big fish. He struck just as a thunder attack hit the other side. The fish was tossed backwards, and Roxas took a risk to see where the magic had come from.

Sora came up level with him. "Need a hand?"

Roxas frowned. "Where's Naminé?"

"She said she can use magic, so she went to help Xion."

Sure enough, he could see the two of them working together down below. It reminded him a little of the first couple of missions he went on with Xion, when she hadn't been able to summon her own Keyblade yet. She'd been impressively strong then, and she was even stronger now. They'd be fine.

The fish finally rolled to a stop, shaking itself, and then barrelled towards them. Roxas and Sora dove in opposite directions, before coming around the sides and dragging their Keyblades across its scales. Its armour was tough, but Roxas could see a deep scrape where Oathkeeper and Oblivion had pierced it.

He and Sora regrouped behind it.

"These guys can take a beating," Sora told him, watching as the fish arched back around. "But once we get through its scales it'll go down quickly. Then we'll only have to worry about the tident ones on its back."

"Got a plan, then?"

Sora's eyes widened as the tident Heartless took the initiative, shooting out lasers made of darkness straight for them. "Duck!" he cried, grabbing Roxas' hand and yanking them both down out of range.

"If I distract it with a shotlock, do you think you can use your light thing to get through the armour?"

Roxas lit up both Keyblades. "My 'light thing'?"

"Yeah, that!"

He rolled his eyes. "Whenever you're ready."

Sora held his Keyblade straight out in front of him, taking aim at the fish that was quickly swimming their way. As soon as he unleashed it, the fish charged him, and Roxas sprang forward, sinking both Keyblades into the Heartless' side, right where he'd scraped it before. The fish disintegrated into a cloud of darkness, its captured heart slowly drifting up towards the surface. Where would it go now, he wondered, without Kingdom Hearts?

The tident Heartless didn't falter at the destruction of their ride. They split off into groups of two, one lot going after Roxas, and the other Sora. It barely even took one strike to take them out.

With the Heartless eliminated, they headed down to where Xion and Naminé were collecting munny on the seafloor.

Naminé looked up at their approach. "We were thinking we could just carry the shells."

"I can always come back sometime if I need more," Xion added. "Or visit a different world that has some."

Sora lifted a small conch out of the sand. "Are there any in particular you want us to look for?"

She shook her head. "I guess any that aren't common on Destiny Islands?"

Roxas wasn't sure he was familiar enough with the Islands to accurately judge which shells were common and which weren't, so when Sora started drifting away to widen their search area, he followed after him.

They foraged in silence for a while, with only the intermittent tident-Heartless (quickly destroyed) and the girls somewhere behind them to break it. But when Roxas glanced over to see which shells Sora had chosen, there was a weird expression on his face, like something was bothering him.

Sensing his gaze, Sora looked over at him. His expression didn't change.

"What?" Roxas frowned.

Sora turned back to the sand, and dug a spiralling shell out from between a couple of rocks. "Kairi told me that she put us down as your parents."

Roxas couldn't help the grimace at the reminder. "It's still weird."

"A little," Sora smiled. "But I don't mind."

"Are you sure?" His tone and the troubled frown on his face certainly made it feel like he did. Kairi had told them that he'd be fine with it, but that didn't guarantee it.

"Hey," Sora straightened, giving Roxas his full attention. "You're happy in Twilight Town with Axel, right?"

What kind of question was that? "Why wouldn't I be?"

"So you're okay with him adopting you and Xion?"

"Well, yeah," Roxas shrugged. "I mean, he's been taking care of us since the beginning, so it's not like anything would really change, right? It's just a piece of paper." He still didn't really understand the concept of parents, but he did know that Axel was the closest he and Xion would ever really get to one. And even though he could be a jerk sometimes, they wouldn't trade him for anyone.

"Yeah," Sora agreed, but he still looked like there was something on his mind.

"What?" Roxas pressed.

"Huh?"

"Something's bothering you."

Sora sighed. "It's just… I know I don't know you very well, or Xion, but I don't want you to think that me signing the guardianship forms means I don't want you or something."

Roxas stared at him. " _That's_ what you're worried about?"

He pouted at Roxas' incredulous tone.

"Sora, we're kind of the same person." In a weird, separate-identity sort of way. It had taken him a long time to come to terms with it, but it was possible to remain connected to Sora as his Nobody and still be his own person. They were the same, but also not. Like two halves of a whole. "You're stuck with me whether you like it or not. I'm not your son, no matter what some form says. I'm _you_."

Sora blinked owlishly, but then his frown eased into a bright smile. "We're not the same person, Roxas, but I think I get what you mean. And I'd prefer to be your brother than your dad, anyway."

"I think technically you'd be my mom."

"What?!"

 

* * *

 

Lea refreshed his Kingstagram feed for the third time in the last five minutes. His free hand was tapping idly on his knee. Every couple of minutes, Isa would look up from his laptop on the armchair and stare at him. Lea scrolled a little way down his feed until he saw the post he'd seen last time, and refreshed again.

"You're worried," Isa said.

"Worried? I'm not worried," Lea immediately denied. "Just cause it's ten to six and the kids aren't back yet doesn't mean I'm worried."

Isa closed his laptop with a nearly inaudible click and set it down on the side table. "They'll be fine," he said, not even bothering to point out Lea's blatant lie. "They're more than capable of defending themselves."

"I know that." Because he did.

"You're worried Sora won't sign the guardianship forms."

"Can you blame me? He just spent all afternoon with them. He's going to realise how great they are and won't give them back!"

Isa was not impressed. "Do you really think he would so deliberately go against both your and their wishes?"

"…No." Sora was nothing if not completely selfless.

"And in the highly unlikely event that he did decide to maintain guardianship, and Roxas and Xion were to return to the Islands with him, what would you do?"

Man, he didn't even want to think about it, but the answer was obvious. "Move to the Islands, too." Maybe also fight Sora to the death.

Isa looked very smug for someone so expressionless.

"Damnit, Isa, stop using logic on me."

"Someone has to, seeing as you don't have any of your own."

Any offended retort Lea might have given was cut short by the sound of the front door swinging open, and then a feminine voice calling,

"We're back!"

Lea absolutely did not sprint to the entryway, and he was definitely not disappointed to discover it had been Kairi instead of Xion. She and Riku had left shortly after the other kids had, off to pay a visit to the local trio.

Riku took one look at his perfectly normal and not at all disappointed face, and said, "Sora and the others aren't back yet, I take it?"

"Not yet," Isa confirmed, coming to stand by Lea's side.

"They still have time," Kairi reassured them, checking her phone. "They probably just got distracted. It's easy to do in a new place."

Lea frowned. "New place?" There were no new places in Twilight Town. They'd all scoured every inch of it over the year the Roxas and Xion had been in the Organization.

"Yeah. The gummiship is gone, so he probably took them to a world they haven't been to before."

Lea froze. " _World?!_ " World?! He frantically brought up his contacts list and scrolled down.

"What's the big deal?" Riku raised a brow.

"I thought they were just going to the Usual Spot or something to talk!" He hit call as soon as Roxas' name came up. It rang for what felt like forever, before going to voicemail. The same thing happened when he tried Xion, and then Naminé and Sora. _Sora kidnapped my kids._ "They're not answering. Sora kidnapped my kids!"

"You gave them permission to go, though?"

"Yeah, to _Twilight Town_."

"You're being ridiculous," Isa said, exasperated.

"Am I? Roxas has been kidnapped at least once."

Riku grimaced.

"And Xion has been, what? Three times? Four?"

"You were the kidnapper in Xion's case," Isa unhelpfully reminded him. "I hardly think any of those instances count."

"And Naminé!" Lea continued, ignoring him. "She's practically the _definition_ of kidnapped!" It probably wouldn't have even been hard. They already trusted Sora. All he'd have to do was offer them ice cream and friendship, and they'd follow him to the deepest part of the Underworld.

And, Kingdom Hearts, now that he thought about it all three of them were abducted far too often, never mind that Roxas treated strangers with suspicion by default and Xion was usually smart enough to trust his judgement.

The door chose that moment to slam open a second time, hitting Riku in the back of the head so hard he almost fell over. Sora, Xion, Roxas, and Naminé barrelled in, arms cradling an obscene amount of shells, and hair damp. They were panting like they'd sprinted all the way up Market Street.

"Did we make it?!" Sora asked.

Xion made a motion to reach into her pocket, but then seemingly remembered her hands were full. "I think so."

All four of them breathed a collective sigh of relief, and then looked up, finally realising that they had an audience.

"We're not late!" Roxas declared. The time on Lea's phone said 5:58pm. Two minutes to spare.

"Cutting it close there," Lea said, and pulled him and Xion into an awkward hug, being careful not to crush their shells. Their hair left wet patches on his shirt but he didn't even care. "Next time tell me if you're going off-world. And why are you _wet_?"

"We went to Atlantica," Naminé said.

"To get shells," Xion added once Lea released them. As if that much wasn't completely obvious.

"Go dry yourselves off," Lea shoved them towards the stairs. Naminé trailed after them, but Sora remained where he was.

"He thought you'd kidnapped them," Kairi laughed. Lea glared at her.

Sora tilted his head in thought. "Does it count as kidnapping if I'm their mom?"

"I thought I was their mom."

"You're Naminé's mom, and Roxas and Xion's dad."

Riku, still nursing the new bump on back of his head, said, "Not for long."

 _Better not be for long,_ Lea thought.

Isa set a calming hand on Lea's shoulder. "Did you talk to them?"

Sora nodded. "Yeah."

"And?"

"I'm ready to sign the forms."

 

* * *

 

Lea slid the form and the pen across the table, now with his signature on the appropriate dotted lines. Roxas and Xion stood on his right, and Isa on his left. He watched without a trace of his earlier anxiousness as Sora did the same, and then passed it over to Kairi. Finally, she looped the last letter of her name, and set the pen down.

"Congratulations," she grinned, neatening the pile and handing it back to Lea. "It's twins."

As he accepted the forms, heavy with the weight of a responsibility that he'd only partially had before, he let the moment sink in. In every way that mattered, the four of them were now officially and legally a family. And no one would be able to take them from him again.


End file.
